Chapter Eight: Food for Thought
The euphoria of the taste lingered, a shared, silent consensus around the table. It wasn't just the food; the juice itself was a revelation, crisp and invigorating. But as the initial bliss subsided, a single, pragmatic thought began to surface in every elder's mind: Could this miracle be replicated?
And someone expressed that thought after the moment of pure bliss had passed. "This is fantastic. I've never eaten something like this. Everything I had before, even the Ranked Demon Beast meat, tastes bland," said Long Xun, who proceeded to ask, "But Young Master, can it be made by anyone else?"
Every eye at the table, and those of Zi Rou leaving the kitchen, were on Long Tian. He answered with a very simple question. "Vice-Head Long Xun, can alchemy be replicated?"
That stunned everyone.
"I wouldn't be so arrogant as to claim they are the same discipline, but the underlying principle holds true," he explained, then asked another question. "Head Elder Yun, what is the principle of alchemy?"
The man was surprised but answered, "Mixing herbs in a cauldron with fire?" He had tried alchemy before, and it wasn't easy, not even the basic concepts.
"Well, you can reduce it to that. But it's not just mixing herbs; it's the precision of it." He looked at the table and explained his thought process. "You can't just put herbs in a cauldron and hope for them to mix perfectly, and you can't hope to put two incompatible ingredients together and think the pill will be a good, functional one. You need to mix them with precision and with compatibility."
"But your mother said you didn't know alchemy. This is just... I don't have the word to describe what I tasted, but it didn't feel like alchemy to me," said Long Hui, with a confused but satisfied expression.
"I'm not an alchemist, and I would never dare to say what I did is remotely as hard. But I used the principles from the books," he said, and seeing their faces were still confused, he added, "I saw that huge amount of high-quality herbs and food and thought, 'Well, maybe I could mix them?' And so I tested, like everything I do regarding this space. After a series of failures, I found the Ember Root. Its taste was aromatic and foundational, a flavor that seemed to unlock the potential of everything else it touched. The thought of mixing this herb with the meat came to my mind, and the rest just felt right."
"You don't have any idea what this means, do you?" the Grand Elder asked seriously.
"That depends on what you mean," Long Tian answered cheekily. "Are you referring to the birth of a new profession? The thought has crossed my mind. Or are you referring to the restaurant venture? That will be for this council to decide."
"Be more respectful with your great-grandmother, the Grand Elder!" his mother corrected him.
"Brat. You are changing things here, creating power where there wasn't any," Long Meifeng said. "But your restaurant idea? Patriarch, if you will."
Long Qingxiao nodded, understanding her meaning. "Those who are in favor of the restaurant as a new business venture for the family, rise from your seats."
It was unanimous. Every Elder had a look of expectation after they sat.
"Now, you may take the stage and detail your plan, family member Long Tian," the Patriarch said with a proud look on his face and an equally proud smile, a look his wife shared with him.
He wanted to roll his eyes at the formal way his father called him, but held himself. He knew it was important not to act out now.
"Members of this respectable council, my plan has three steps." He lifted his first finger. "First, train the cooks. I can do that without the use of the space. It's the easiest part, but we will need to vet who we teach." Everyone nodded in accordance. He then lifted another finger. "Second, we will need the resources. I can take those from the farm easily, but we need a cover story."
"That will be hard. Even if we expand our herb fields and farms, not even counting the animals," Long Yun said.
"And our population is too scarce for such an expansion. It would attract people from outside, and with them, spies, as Elder Long Xun said before," added Long Hui. The aforementioned man nodded.
"We outsource it," Long Tian suggested.
"Pulling another family in could attract even more attention. It would solve the problem, sure, but the costs would be immense," Long Yun countered.
"But it's a cost we need to pay. Remember, we will not be using their herbs," Long Tian said, and the looks of understanding made him smile.
"Yes. That could be good. They will think our food's taste has something to do with their herbs," Long Min voiced the understanding out loud.
"We misdirect the spies," Long Xun added.
"And this may actually raise the prices of their herbs in the long run. We can stock up on them to sell later in our stores," commented Long Hai.
"That I wasn't actually thinking about," Long Tian admitted with a thoughtful face. "Well, whatever. Is everyone in accordance with my plan so far?"
They nodded.
"So, the last part: the restaurants. I'm thinking of creating them in three types." He said with three fingers raised. "The common one, with no use of high-quality items beyond the seasonings, will be aimed at the Non-cultivators. They are the largest population in the city." Nobody interrupted, so he continued, "The second will aim at low-rank Cultivators. We will add high-quality food with the seasonings, but we will keep the Ranked Demon Beasts out. And the last one, as you've already assumed, will aim for the elite. We will use the best the space can provide. That is where we will make the real money."
Everyone nodded, some with thoughtful faces, others just looking forward to it.
"But the rise of cultivation would be a problem, wouldn't it?" Long Jian pondered.
"Uncle, did you feel your cultivation rise?" Long Tian asked, and he shook his head. "And did any of you?"
"In my case, I only felt energized," said Long An.
"Can any of you answer why you didn't feel anything?" Long Tian asked the group.
"It is because the effect is spread out," Zi Rou interjected, answering her son's question.
"Exactly. You didn't feel it because the effect is negligible for you, just as it is for someone like Father to eat one complete herb," he explained. "This will change in the elite restaurant in the center of the city, but that one we will only open when Father breaks through to the Legend Rank in five years or so."
The last line caught everyone by surprise. Their eyes were wide open, and the conversation quickly shifted when Long Feng looked at his great-nephew and asked, "Is that possible?" His voice trembled as he spoke.
And so did everyone's mind with the answer. "Not only possible, but feasible." Long Tian then took a scroll from the ring, a white one. They knew what that meant. "This formula is for a pill called the Soul Assembling Pill. Everyone is familiar with its effect, right?"
"Yes. This is the most common pill in the city, used to enhance cultivation practice. A pity it only really works for those in the Bronze rank or below," Long Yun answered.
"So you also know that if Purple Haze Grass was added to its formula, the effects would rise by at least thirty percent, right?" Long Tian said with a smile to everyone's surprise.
"What? That common herb? C-can I see the formula, Young Master?" Long Min asked, trembling. He did his magic, and the scroll from his hand was now in hers. "It's true... This formula... The money we could make just by this..." Her head was spinning, and she didn't notice that the formula was already in the hands of the Head of her Branch.
"This is unbelievable! This formula is the one everyone who deals with alchemy knows. To think that just this one change could mean so much," Long Yun mumbled. As a frustrated alchemist, he knew the formula; it was basically an entry requirement for alchemists to learn its ingredients.
Everyone was getting excited, and the Grand Elder was preparing to ask for the recipe when Long Tian said, "But that isn't the only one we have here." He had another scroll in his hands. "This one is a Soul Nurturing Pill. It is ten times stronger than the assembling one, effective for Silver Ranks." He put that scroll on the table and took two more from the ring. "Here in my hands, I have two more. One is named the Soul Concentrating Pill and the other is the Soul Tempering Pill. They are one hundred and a thousand times more effective than the first one, respectively." When he put the two scrolls on the table, everyone gulped.
"Here, Patriarch, pass these to the other elders," he said to his father, who had his hands trembling.
Long Qingxiao recognized those names. Alchemists of the association complained about their incomplete states often enough that the city-wide public knew their names. But knowing the name and knowing the effects were two different things. He took the scrolls and silently passed one to his wife and two to Long Xun after he read them.
And silently, the Elders read, every one of them, until the formulas were in front of Long Tian again.
"These pills are from a type of pill called 'Soul Tempering Pills,' and they are the reason I believe Father can get to the Legend Rank..." He paused and took another scroll from his hands. "In this scroll is a Soul Ascension Pill. It's from the same type, and it's the fifth tier. You know what that means, right?"
And their minds went blank. They had never heard of such a pill. How could such a thing exist in the world?
"And the best part? As you guys noticed, the formulas are very similar, just with changing a herb here and there and their age." He paused to let that sink in. "If we can create home-grown alchemists in this family, we can enhance our strength without the need to divulge all of it to the Alchemist Association."
It took some time for the group to recuperate from the reveals. They could see the Patriarch at the Legend Rank; even some of them could see themselves rising high. But there was one problem: they hadn't had success before in creating alchemists.
"But the problem is still to home-grow them, as you said," the Grand Elder added. "Even with all the knowledge you have and all the resources, it still won't be easy. Alchemy is a very high-standard profession. I know we will have some in the family with what you have, but it won't be before your deadline." She paused and completed, "We lack experienced teachers. You can do that with your cooking venture, but you said yourself that you aren't an alchemist. Who is going to teach our own so we can accelerate the process? I doubt you want to share your knowledge since you said that we don't need to divulge this to the alchemists in the association. So, how?"
Every pair of eyes was on Long Tian now. He looked thoughtful. "Well, I said that we didn't need to divulge all of it, not that we won't divulge any. We need money for our endeavor, so we can tie everything together."
"Go on," Long Meifeng said, looking at her great-grandson.
"We make a trade with the head of the Alchemist Association," Long Tian started. "For the improved formula of the Soul Assembling Pill. We say we found it on an expedition. We take an old piece of parchment and write the formula to make it look real. In exchange, we propose that he teaches people from our family the practical side, while we provide the theoretical knowledge we have."
"But on what expedition did we find it?" Long Qingxiao interjected. "I'm against the deception, but I understand the need for it. So, what expedition? We haven't left the city since that day."
"The one you will request from Lord Ye Zong after we end this," Long Tian said with a smile. "One in a region people have gone to before, where you 'found' books in old languages. We have a lot of them in the ring. Their material is old and mostly translated already; they are the bestiaries and the like. Nothing too relevant, so we can part with them. We can even throw the one with the Soul Forming information in it to sell the story. It's a relic, but if it's best to part with it, so be it."
"So the expedition can't be to a known area; those places have been researched relentlessly," the Grand Elder argued.
"The surface, in most cases, I believe, and probably only the noble areas. These people must have had underground structures to place their people when disaster struck. There is a book in the collection we have now explaining how to build one. It isn't exactly a foreign concept," Long Tian countered. "And maybe we can find something buried there to sell the story even better."
"We will discuss this later. Your plan is good, but we need a more in-depth conversation about it," the Patriarch said, turning to the table and ending that conversation. "This council has extended way beyond its original intention. The restaurant plan will follow as discussed, including its steps. Long Hui, you will let Elder Tao deal with Elder Long Xun for personnel; you will help family member Long Tian find the cooks. We still have to decide whether or not to create the crafting branch."
"I believe we should weed out the traitors first," proposed Elder Long Shan, to Long Qingxiao's nod.
"It will be hard. As I said, even with more people, weeding them out will take months," Long Xun said.
"So, we bring them out," Long Tian abruptly said.
Everyone turned their eyes to him, and Long Xun asked, "How?"
"We use the expedition. Divulge its existence to everyone, but only inside the family. After this, you put your people to observe those who leave the family," he proposed.
"An interesting approach, but I doubt it would be effective. Spying is a boring job, Young Master, and people don't go about talking everything to their masters. They need a sound reason. The expedition is good, but people leave the city all the time, and it's not exactly a secret," Long Xun countered.
The boy made a thoughtful expression, and then a scowl appeared on his face. "I have an idea. You won't like it," he said, bothered by his own thought.
"And what idea would that be?" the Grand Elder asked.
"You'll like it even less than they will," he said, and the Grand Elder had a look of understanding on her face.
"I agree," she said. "We divulge my cultivation to the family and let Elder Long Xun follow the trail."
"You two know that I will have to request noble status, right?" the Patriarch said in a serious tone. "And what that means."
"Patriarch, is it possible that they won't act? They took what they wanted from us: half of our territory," pondered Long Min.
"No, girl. They didn't," the Grand Elder said, her face shadowed in a mix of pain and rage. "They took what they could get. The moment my breakthrough becomes known is the moment we will have to start watching the shadows. I remember the look on that brat Shen Hong's eyes." Her tone now was of pure anger. "He knew and was daring me to say that the beast wasn't the one he was selling. He wanted more. He wanted a reason to end our family. I'm sure of that!" She calmed down and continued, "But now, we won't be the ones without complete knowledge, will we? Yes, I, an old woman at the end of her life, broke through to the Gold Rank. That isn't exactly a promise of a great future, right?"
Long Qingxiao pondered for a moment and rose from his seat. "All in favor of divulging the Grand Elder's cultivation rise?" Every elder rose from their seat. Still standing, the Patriarch announced, "Then I hereby announce we will be petitioning for the rank of Aristocrats of Glory City. And with that, this council is adjourned, to be reconvened to discuss the creation of another branch at a later date. May our ancestors take pride in our choice and have mercy on our souls in case we fail."